Chapter 4

Nine long days after Elizabeth and her sister returned to Longbourn, Netherfield once more opened its doors—this time to the entire neighbourhood. When Bingley first announced that he would hold a ball, Darcy had considered inventing an excuse to return to London that he might avoid it. He detested dancing unless he was acquainted with his partner, and he found the onus of making conversation with so many strangers excessively tedious. As he dressed for the occasion, listening to the musicians tuning their instruments downstairs and anticipating the dance he meant to secure with Elizabeth, he felt none of his previous aversion. He would have been hard-pressed to name another ball he had looked forward to as much.

He had seen Elizabeth but once in the last week—an encounter ruined by the unexpected and vastly unwelcome presence of George Wickham. Discreet enquiries had revealed that he was come to take up a post in the regiment encamped near Meryton, and Darcy was exasperated by the untimely coincidence.

Tilting his chin up to allow Milton to tie his cravat, he caught sight of his heightened complexion in the mirror. Wickham had that effect on him. He knew he had coloured when they encountered each other in the street, too—and worse, that Elizabeth had seen it. He had been greatly relieved to hear from Bingley that the cur would not be attending the ball.

He slid his arms into his coat and waited impatiently while his man brushed it down. Eager to join the party, he had little patience for Milton’s usual attention to detail. He looked at the clock, wondering how soon Elizabeth would arrive. She had been on his mind a great deal. Conversation at Netherfield since she left had lost much of its animation, and almost all of its cleverness. Bingley was an entertaining fellow, but he disliked debates; neither Miss Bingley nor Mrs Hurst had much to say beyond endless blandishments, and Hurst was an uninformed sot. Rational, challenging discussion of the variety Elizabeth provided was a rare commodity, and Darcy craved more.

That was not all he craved, and he knew he was playing with fire to have allowed himself to dwell on her other fine qualities for as long as he had. More than once had he caught himself admiring her figure while she was at Netherfield, and so expressive, so intelligent did he now consider her countenance that he could not fathom how he once dismissed her as only tolerably handsome.

Certainly, none of Bingley’s family looks half so alluring while they are disagreeing with me, he thought as he stepped into his shoes. None of them ever disagreed with him; that was the trouble. He had not appreciated the tedium of always being deferred to until Elizabeth refused to do it. Neither had he known the exhilaration of being challenged by a pair of fine eyes until he met her.

They were brimming with challenge when he greeted her a short while later, too. What he had done to earn it was a mystery, but he hardly cared. She looked so well that the severest frown could not have made her look any less lovely. He greeted all her family, then turned his attention to her.

“I trust you are fully recovered?”

This drew expressions of confusion from her relations, but she took it in her stride. “From my stay at Netherfield? Completely, thank you. From four days of confinement due to the weather? Less so, but I expect an evening of dancing will remedy that.”

“Might I have the pleasure of your hand for a set?”

He had not meant to ask her so soon, but since one set was all he meant to allow himself, he was anxious not to lose his chance. He would be careful not to reveal too much of his regard; just enough that when he departed Hertfordshire, it would be secure in the knowledge that she would not be left thinking ill of him.

She looked astonished, as did her family, but she accepted him for the third set. He bowed and moved away, heart thundering idiotically with relief, for only at the last moment had he recalled her propensity for refusing his offers of a dance.

“I hope you are managing to enjoy yourself, Mr Darcy,” said Miss Bingley, sidling up to him and dispelling his good humour. “I know how you dislike balls, but Charles was adamant, and I could not avoid the obligation of inviting some of our neighbours. We can only hope they behave themselves.”

Darcy was saved from responding, for the musicians at that moment struck up and, having naturally promised the first two dances to his hostess, Miss Bingley pre-emptively thrust out her hand that he might lead her to the head of the line. She preened and posed and generally made a great exhibition of being the most important lady present. He looked to see who was partnering Elizabeth. It was a tall, heavy-looking man, whom he recognised as having been with her when they met in Meryton.

Heavy-looking translated into heavy-footed once the set began. Elizabeth was tugged about in all the wrong directions, often required to remind her partner of the correct figures, frequently apologising to those around her, and looking exceedingly unhappy throughout.

“Do you know who that is with Miss Elizabeth?” Darcy asked.

Miss Bingley did not answer immediately, and a quick glance revealed her to have a pinched expression.

“Her cousin,” she replied coldly. “And the heir to Longbourn, I understand, though I should not tolerate such dreadful dancing for anything less than the heir to the throne.”

No, Darcy thought. Because you are not as forbearing as Elizabeth. She was not as interesting either. She talked at every opportunity the dance provided, but by the end of the set, Darcy had learnt nothing other than that she admired the colour of his waistcoat, the cut of his jacket, his dancing, his house, and his sister. All of which she had told him many times before. The next set, with Mrs Hurst, was worse. She had no opinions of her own at all; she only agreed with all of his. By the time he collected Elizabeth for the third set, he was nigh on itching with anticipation for a measure of her wit.

She was quiet at first but did not long remain so. “You are uncommonly lively this evening, Mr Darcy,” she remarked after about a quarter of an hour. “Do you talk by rule when you are dancing?”

“I confess…no, not as a rule.”

“That is what I should have supposed of you. You have surprised me again.”

Again? He knew better than to enquire how he had done it the first time. “I danced the first two sets with Bingley’s sisters, and our conversations varied little from those of the last week, for we, too, have been confined together for four days.”

“In other words, you had nothing to say to each other. I would commiserate, but I rather think you had the better arrangement. I do not believe a minute of my first dance passed in which I received fewer than three apologies.”

Darcy chuckled slightly. “It was kind of you to allow him the set.”

“I do not deserve any such praise, for I had no choice in the matter. To use our tried and tested method of describing people, Mr Collins is very much the colour of toffee.”

“Cloying?”

She winced guiltily. “Perhaps that was unfair.”

Darcy shook his head. Toffee was also stiff and saccharine; thus, she had told him all he needed to know about her cousin with but one word and without a hint of malice. “On the contrary, I thought it was an exceedingly generous way to sketch his character—but I have come to expect no less of you. I have never heard you speak unkindly to, or of, anyone.”

She looked taken aback. “We both know that is untrue. I have spoken unkindly to you on more than one occasion.”

“I disagree. You have said things I did not like, but not because you spoke meanly. Because they were true, and I did not want to hear them.”

“I am afraid the only merit I might justly claim is an ability to express ungenerous sentiments pleasantly. It is Jane who never thinks ill of anyone if she can possibly help it.”

Darcy smiled and did not argue. They were required to cease speaking while they went down the dance. He watched Elizabeth, captivated by her happy demeanour, which was in stark contrast to her discomfort earlier in the evening. Her uninhibited pleasure, the energy of the dance, the bright candlelight all gave a lustre to her countenance that reminded him of how beautiful she had looked asleep in the moonlight. Then she laughed at something and turned her sparkling eyes on him, and he comprehended why he had not instantly seen her beauty. Elizabeth was the colour of a diamond—beautiful but dazzling, refracting one’s attention to her clever words, or enigmatic smiles, or wind-tousled hair, or bubbling laughter. It was distracting—fascinating, but distracting. Beneath it all was one of the handsomest faces he had ever seen.

It was an absorbing realisation, and he could think of nothing to say when they were returned to standing in the line.

Elizabeth, too, had grown serious. “Mr Darcy, while we are on the subject of speaking ungenerously about people, there is something I should like to ask you. When you met us in Meryton the other day, we had just been forming a new acquaintance.”

Darcy’s enjoyment of the dance contracted in an instant. He had dismissed Wickham from his thoughts and wished it had not been Elizabeth who brought up the mention of him.

“He explained to me your connexion,” she continued. “That he was your father’s godson.”

He nodded.

“He began to tell me more, but when I said that you and I were friends, he seemed to change his mind.”

Darcy’s heart lurched preposterously. Friends! It was absurd the pleasure this pronouncement gave him.

“And I was wondering…That is, he has been very charming towards me and my sisters, but some of what he said… There is something… I cannot easily explain it?—”

“You do not need to explain it,” Darcy interrupted. He clenched his teeth in anger at the thought of Wickham using his arts on Elizabeth. “Mr Wickham’s character can be best described as the colour of charcoal.”

She regarded him with frowning enquiry.

“He has a blackened heart, and he mars everything he touches.” His pulse increased significantly as he made a sudden decision. He regarded her solemnly. “Especially paper.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened, and she paled noticeably. For several, horrible seconds, Darcy feared he had made a grave mistake, but eventually, she gave him a decisive nod.

“Thank you. I shall know how to act now.”

He inclined his head and was grateful when they were interrupted by Sir William, whose effusions about ‘superior dancing’ were less irksome than they might have been had Darcy not been in such dire need of distraction.

“I must hope to have this pleasure often repeated,” Sir William went on. “Especially when a certain desirable event shall take place.” He glanced at Miss Bennet and Bingley. “What congratulations will then flow in!”

He departed, leaving Darcy and Elizabeth both looking down the line of dancers at the couple in question. Bingley’s preference for Elizabeth’s elder sister had been obvious to Darcy for some time, but if his attentions to her had given rise to a general expectation of their marriage, it was a more immediate concern. He was still looking intently, attempting to perceive any participation of sentiment on Miss Bennet’s part, when he felt the delicious sensation of Elizabeth leaning closer to him to speak quietly.

“His sunshine makes her colours show more, do you not think?”

Bingley said something at that moment which made several people around him laugh. Miss Bennet only smiled, but she did so with a warmth Darcy was certain he would have missed previously—and whatever she said in reply evidently delighted Bingley.

“I do,” he replied. That earned him a radiant smile, encouraging him to add, “You truly are a remarkable studier of character.”

“Oh, I do not know about that. I do not always get it right.”

She regarded him earnestly while she said this, and he found himself hoping—with a fervency that was entirely at odds with his resolution not to allow his attraction to run into affection—that she meant him. They were required to go down the dance one more time before the set was complete, but as he led her back to her chair, he could not refrain from asking, “Will you tell me now why you think my colour is jade?”

She stopped walking abruptly and sighed. “You are determined to know?”

He did not recede, and she sighed again.

“I said it because you seemed disillusioned with all the world, dissatisfied with everything and everyone. It struck me that you were just so very…jaded.”

Darcy started. In all his deliberations, that explanation had never once occurred to him. He knew not what to make of it, for whilst it was not quite a reproof, neither was there anything flattering in the term. “Do you still think it, despite your admission to not always judging correctly at first?”

She gave him a crooked, apologetic smile and nodded.

It was for the best, Darcy decided. Here was a timely reminder of what he ought never to have let himself forget: Elizabeth and he were from different spheres. If his manners were a mystery to her, it was because they lived by different principles and adhered to different standards. He did not blame her for not understanding. In a way, he was pleased she did not. It made it easier to leave her behind.

“I thank you for your honesty, and the dance. I shall remember it.” He bowed and walked away.